A Cheerful Holiday Message

It’s the holiday season and that means one thing: News reports showing political officials serving Thanksgiving dinners at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Very few things get me as upset as this.


Folks, if you want to do a good deed on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, please don’t pester your local homeless shelter. Stay home and enjoy your turkey and football and family dysfunction.

Several years ago, I was a supervisor in a large housing facility in Chicago that provided hundreds of hot meals every day. Every year at Thanksgiving or Christmas, we would be inundated with folks wanting to volunteer and serve meals on those days. We had to assign extra staff just to take care of all the phone calls.

I remember one woman who got very upset when she showed up to volunteer and it was suggested she help stock the shelves in the kitchen. Oh no! She wanted to work “with” the unfortunate homeless people. I’m sure she envisioned herself benevolently smiling to the less fortunate as she handed them a plate of food.

And yes, city officials made their appearance for the news teams. They’d crowd into the serving line and dish up green beans for half an hour, disrupting the entire operation, and then leave. All for show. They were serving their needs; not their constituents. 

Parents would drag their teenage children there to show them the unfortunate, homeless people in hopes of providing them with a lesson on how good they had it. (The Duggars did the same while visiting Washington D.C. last year.) Then, the parents would get upset when we didn’t have anything for them to do. I really wanted to tell these parents that our facility provided multiple services, but being a zoo wasn’t one of them. (Jim Bob Duggar, take note.)

Yes, volunteers are severely needed at these facilities – year round. There were wonderful people who faithfully showed up all year long to help out and I don’t know what we would have done without them. They answered phones, stocked shelves, unloaded delivery trucks – all behind the scenes.

These facilities serve meals every day and they have their routine down really well. Homeless people are hungry every day. It’s not like there’s a huge surge of them requiring sustenance just because it's a holiday.

If you want your teenager to volunteer, great. Have the little darlings show up every Monday at 7:00 am before school, without fail, so they can unload the delivery truck in the back alley.

On Thanksgiving as you’re enjoying your turkey and gravy and find yourself wanting to help, do your local shelter a real favor.  Stay home, watch the game, and write a check.

The Best Sarah Palin Interview Ever

Yesterday, as I was getting my hair cut, the woman who does my hair told me about this Sarah Palin interview.

Apparently, Palin had gone to a turkey farm outside of Wasilla and had just pardoned a turkey for Thanksgiving. She then continued on with an interview.

However, over her shoulder, turkeys continued to be “processed” all through the three-minute interview.

Shirley, my hair stylist, told me about it and I really didn’t believe her.

Lo, and behold, it was true. I found an unedited version for you. (Fox News blurred out the beheading and subsequent flopping around of one turkey).

Keep watching until the very end where Palin mentions that promoting a local business "was fun" and won't be controversial - - while that poor gobbler is thrashing about.

The irony is priceless. Even the writers of Saturday Night Live could not have come up with something this hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kjM1asH-8

Oh What Fun. . .

Picture this. . .
The-Day-After-Thanksgiving.

Friday, November 29, 1985.

November 28 was the latest day that the fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day, could have fallen.

That, in itself, should have been a dire warning.

As usual, my immediate family members on the more social/slightly dysfunctional side of the family (i.e. "Irish") had planned to meet at my Aunt Jo’s house in Dallas Texas.

Aunt Jo had always pulled off the best Thanksgiving dinners, especially since her own four young-adult kids lived nearby in the Dallas-Ft.Worth area.

I was 26 years old at the time and was living in Austin, three hours south of Dallas. My mom and grandmother lived two hours south of Austin, so they planned on driving up to Austin and then have me drive them through the Dallas Metroplex to my aunt’s house.

Let me preface this by saying that driving across the Dallas Metroplex to visit my aunt was, by far, THE most horrifying thing for my mom EVER to attempt.

She tried it, once, when I was ten years old. She was a young, single mother and we'd never been to a big, intimidating city like Dallas before.

After blazing past the Texas School Book Depository, we ended up phoning my aunt from a pay phone somewhere near Little Rock.
Since then, a relative (me) had usually driven us to my aunt’s house.

So, we took off from Austin in my mom’s car with her in the passenger seat and my grandmother in the back.

Keep in mind that this was the Autumn of 1985. The Honda CRX’s were just out - - do you remember the Honda CRX?

Oh my goodness, the Honda CRX was JUST the totally coolest little car. It was a two-seater sports car and I was completely bonkers over this car. I was totally obsessed with them, had to have one, and very few of them were available in Texas at that time.

So, about an hour north of Austin, my mom had just finally relaxed enough from the Horrifying Trip though Austin traffic, enough to not pay attention to my driving. My grandmother was dozing off in the back seat and then - -
- - I spotted a Honda CRX traveling south on I-35.

That was not the best time for me to suddenly shriek with delight,
“AAAAGGGHHHH!! - - LOOK!!!!!!

We ended up with a shoebox of pimento cheese sandwiches all over us after my sleeping grandmother bolted from the back seat like an F-15 pilot on an emergency maneuver. (She always traveled to Dallas with shoeboxes of homemade sandwiches and snacks -- heaven forbid we should have to stop at an over-priced Stuckey’s along the way).

That was the only time my mother ever struck me - - it was an incredibly accurate backhand across my chest, evidence of her being a champion tennis player in college. . . THWAAACK!

We made it to Dallas three hours later.

Luckily for my passengers, there were no more Honda CRXs spotted along the way.

My aunt pulled off her usual Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.There was a giant Texas-sized turkey. My cousin’s wife brought her stuffed eggs.

My cousin, Joanna, would ONLY eat Del-Monte green beans ever since she was four years old, so they were always a holiday staple.

I brought some home-made cranberry sauce which went un-touched (only the canned stuff with the ridges would do)
It also had orange peel in it which, perhaps, raised a few eyebrows.

Orange peel by single men in Texas was not as accepted as it is nowadays.

Anyway, my aunt tried a new recipe which included some of that fake crab meat and served it an appetizer. It was new at the time and my aunt was known for trying new and interesting things; as far as Dallas suburbanite women in the 1980s went.

Most of us tried her crab salad and enjoyed it.

Well, except for Joanna and her family, who would only venture as far as Del-Monte green beans for the past 20 years.

The only other holiday tradition was that I would make a mincemeat pie for me and my Uncle Don. He loved mincemeat pie and so did I. The rest of the family would leave the mincemeat pie completely alone for me and Uncle Don.
Especially his daughter, Joanna.

I left for Austin the next day. Aunt Jo would drive my mom and grandmother down to South Texas later that weekend.

I made it to Waco, halfway back to Austin, before THE CRAB SALAD made itself known to humanity.

Oh my goodness, it’s exactly one hundred miles between Waco and Austin, and believe me, that was the longest hundred miles I’ve ever traveled.

Did you know that there were eight Stuckey’s restaurants evenly spaced between Waco and Austin along I-35 during the 1980s?

My grandmother may have kept us from stopping at any of them during the 1960s, 70s and 80s by catering food in her shoeboxes, but lordy, I hit them all on November 29, 1985.

And I hit them HARD!

I was never so glad to make it home to my little apartment in downtown Austin that night. That trip was horrible.
Just horrible.

I phoned my relatives, very weakly, back in Dallas. . . .

“Mom? ? Mom?? I’m home in Austin. . . ."

“Buck! We’re all sick!”

"Everyone's sick? Everybody?"

"Well, . . . . except for Joanna. . . "

I still shudder, thinking of Aunt Jo’s crab salad.

None of us will eat that fake crab to this day.
Tomorrow, I could call my mom or Jo and mention ‘crab salad’ and they’ll instantly remember that Thanksgiving in Dallas in 1985 when Aunt Jo poisoned us all. . .

Epilogue:

Oh, by the way. . . .

In 1986, I purchased a Honda CRX and it was the best car EVER!.

A Thanksgiving Message

I used to work for a large social-service agency in Chicago that also operated a homeless shelter. And every year about this time, we'd get hundreds of calls to the volunteer center from do-gooders wanting to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the residents in the shelter.

We got so many calls on the day before Thanksgiving that several of us had to drop what we were doing just to answer calls in the volunteer center.

I remember one woman wanted to help and when I told her that she could help stock groceries in the pantry, she got upset. She wanted to work with the homeless, serving them food and smiling at them. Other people wanted to bring their children to "help those less fortunate."

I really wanted to tell them all that the residents weren't in a zoo to be on display for their edification.

Every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was the same. We would just be inundated with help. The parking lot would be filled to capacity with SUVs. It was a huge pain in the butt, let me tell you.

Here's a message: If you want to help the homeless shelters at Thanksgiving, stay home! Especially all you presidential candidates.

If you really want to help, then volunteer in February when it's 20 below zero and help unload the produce truck at six in the morning.
Seriously.

Otherwise, stay home and enjoy the football game on your big-screen TV.

. . . I'll return now to my usual postings of humor and frivolity.

Thanksgiving at O'Hare

Two inches of snow and 30 mph winds are predicted for Chicago tomorrow morning, just as I'll be (hopefully) leaving for Seattle.

This Onion News story was just too good to pass up.

Really. It's hilarious.

Seattle-bound!

It’s hard to believe that I’ll be jetting off to see Lorraine in Seattle on Thursday. (And The Child, The Spouse, The Neighbor, and The Dog).

I've never been to Seattle before. As a matter of fact, I've never even been to the West Coast at all. It'll be an adventure.

And, of course, snow is predicted for Wednesday night and Thursday. Naturally. The last thing I want or need is to have a flight delayed or cancelled at O’Hare on Thanksgiving Day.

I’ve been snowed in at O’Hare before. Once for eleven hours. I was flying from Dallas to Buffalo and, after circling O’Hare in a snowstorm, we finally landed. Unfortunately, the airplane that was supposed to take me to Buffalo had no problem taking off on time without me.

After watching subsequent flights to Buffalo get cancelled or delayed for six hours, I asked the attendant for a status report. She chirped, “Oh, the aircraft that is scheduled to take you to Buffalo is waiting to take off for Chicago.”

“From where is it waiting to take off?” I queried, sweetly.

She checked her computer. “Ummm. Let’s see. . . . Seattle!”

In situations like this, it’s important to plan ahead in order to make things as stress-free as possible. And by “planning ahead” I mean “remembering to bring Valium.”

Seriously, though, it’s a long flight (four and a half hours) and there might be delays. Little kids aren’t the only ones who need to be entertained for that length of time.

I’ll need to ensure that my cell phone, iPod, and laptop are all fully charged. If I’m delayed, I’m sure you all will anxiously be awaiting for updates from O’Hare and I need to be able to do that. New music on the iPod will help as well as having a Really Good Book to read. (In this case, I just got a copy of Nigella Lawson’s “How to Eat.”)

I’m certainly not going to be checking any baggage. The last thing I need is to worry about is the whereabouts of my underpants. (On the Buffalo trip, I was separated from my underpants for an entire weekend).

I’m also going to splurge and take a taxi to O’Hare rather than public transport. My flight is scheduled to leave at 7:40 a.m. and I need to get there extra early. I had selected an aisle seat near the front when I made my reservations online. I purposely selected a seat near the front (it’s quieter up there) and chose an aisle seat. (Long legs; will need to tinkle during the long flight).

Now, Orbitz doesn’t have me indicated on ANY seat and it won’t let me select one. And that means one thing: The flight is overbooked. So I need to get there extra early if I want a halfway decent seat. I’m not going to wait for public transport.

Maybe I should just splurge and pay extra for a seat near the emergency exit. You know, the one with all the extra leg room. You used to be able to select those seats until the airlines realized they could charge extra for them.

I also like to be near the emergency exit in case the plane hurtles to the ground at 475 mph and crashes. Then, I can be the first one to leap to safety.
Women-and-children-first? What is this? The Titanic?
They’re on their own.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be in Seattle shortly after 10:00 am and gleefully in the bosom of Lorraine’s family and friends for Thanksgiving dinner.

Trust me. That’s a lot to be thankful for.